St. Paul daily globe., 1887-01-23

colt is in love with Rachel McCreery. She
is engaged to Lieut.. Hayne, but loves the
Yankee colonel in her heart of hearts,
though her Southern pride repels him. The
Confederate lieutenant is wounded and cap
tured while playing the spy, and. after a
trial by court-martial dies in hospital
during an exciting episode. The Yankee
colonel is desperately wounded and taken
to the old Virginia mansion. where he
finally gets well and wins the girl The
younger sister and the Northern special
correspondent and artist have a side-show
love scrape. The asinine old darkey bobs
in and out, and the absurd old Southern
woman makes she-donkey of herself at
every opportunlty-and the opportunities
are numerous. And finally, amid a whirl-
wind OF applause and peanut hulls, the cur
tam falls on tableau in which two She
rebels are captured by two he-Yankees,
who themselves are Held by the Enemy
in the petticoated form.
Rachel and Susan McCreery are libels on
Southern girlhood. Rachel is an absurd
stick, without one trace of the earnest, i'm
passoned, heroic wOmanhood of Dixie.
She comes trailing down to the parlor in the
morning in blue silk ball-dress, with a
lace overdress and ten-foot train. Think
of it, ye imps and little tadpoles! Worth
made evening costumes dragging around
over breakfast-room floors in an old Vir-
ginia home, when one of the favorite an
thems at every Confederate campfire was:
''Hurrah for the nomespun dress that
Southern ladies wear Linsey- -woolsey
robes and sQuirrel-skin shoes, made by their
own fair hands, were the style then. Miss
Kathryn kidder, who assumes the ridicu-
lOus role, is nice and estimable Evanston
girl, although she has not yet learned to
spell her first name correctly. Evanston is
suburb OF Chicago. and the general good
ness and VirtuouSneSS of its inhabitants
form pleasing contrast to the wicked city.
1t has produced some excellent men and
women, including one bishop of the Meth
odist church; but, as yet, has turned out no
actress. Miss Kidder is as tame and color
less as an icicle of boarding-school tea.
Her entire stock OF histrionic genius con-
sists of hySterical gasp, washing
wiring of the hands and an intricate twist
ing and untwisting of long, tight dress
around pair of long, slim and sinuous
legs.
Miss Louise Dillon, as Susan McCreery,
| IS simply an atrocity, although she brings
down the house at every caper. She is an
outrage On American girls, regardless of
section or class. AS representative of
the girls of the south she is a scandalous
caricature. Imagine Well-born and we'll
bred Southern girl rushing into her own
parlor to fllrt ami to smirk like a beer
jerker, at sight, with an insolent intruder,
whom her niger butler should instantly
kick down the front steps. Fancy her
singing herself down on a sofa, and cock
ing her feet up over the end of it, while she
talks dance-house slang to blackguard
whom she never saw before. Her kitten
lsh antics are Of the tom-kitten variety. Her
conception of Southern girl character and
demeanor has been drawn from a concert
saloon or a hurdy-gurdy show. She cavorts
around with no apparent object but to show
her feet and Shins. She Wallows over
chairs and lounges IN hundred vulgar
! fashions, and makes open love to a brass
faced adventurer with all the simpering in
decent coynesS of a feminine Hottentot.
And yet. the mob of gorgeously
appareled men and women shouts and
laughs at everything she does or says.
Bean. the Northern newspaper correspond
| ent and artist, is the perfection of braZen
yulgarity; a beast, beside whose cheek
the proverbial ''army mule" would become
paragon OF schoolgirl modesty and deli
cacy. Such representation is an insult TO
the whole noble and potent profession of
| journalism. The major general rants and
cuts up like niggerminstrel end-man, and
an old civilian saddle, with hog-Skjn seat
does decorative duty at his headquarters.
The Confederate lieutenant, in a surgeons
uniform with black facngs is utterly con-
temptible, first cOllapSing with abject ter
rOr before the court-martal, and then going
off in a ludicrOus fit of hysterical heroics
The old darkey takes part in the family
councils and conversations in the parlor, as
| free-and easily as in the discussions of the
quarters" cabins; and a hospital doctor,
with impunity. defied the orders
OF the post commander. In the
court martial scene the spiritless
Rachel makes shrieky stump speeches, and
the presiding general thunders back bonn
bastic replies; and the whole piece abounds
with similar abSurdities, monstrosities, ludi-
crosities and preposterosities.
But, with all its faults it contains founda-
ton and material for a great play. The
court-martial scene, the hospital scene and
the battle scene are all capable of being
made in the highest degree sensational and
| thrilling. [ am inclined to apply to Mr..
Gillette's play the Hibernian comment on
the emaciated thoroughbred steed in front
of the blacksmith shop: BE iabers, now,
what an Elegant skeleton to build horse
OnH' But, as you may have inferred from
the foregoing few remarks, do not think
The Great American Play has yet been
| written. p. DOMAIN.
Chicago, Jan. II, 1887.